I wanted to have a ‘Math Monday’ every so often-really every Monday but I am not sure that is reasonable. Last week we went to a friend’s and did puddle math and discussed different ways you could measure a puddle. This week we did magic squares courtesy of Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares. I saw it at the library and grabbed it thinking it would be perfect. We did our “regular” math first Alex had already read the book (b/c it took me that long to get to it *roll eyes*) and he thought this was a magic square. He was very excited! We noted the patterns and I broke the news that it was an addition table but that we were going to do magic squares. He insisted on doing the entire page even though that was not what I planned. I am not a fool-would never plan to have him actually write THAT MUCH :p. Anyway, here is a magic square : Cool, huh? Each row, column, even diagonal adds up to the same number! 15 in this case but you can do harder ones with more squares.

This week has been busy. On Monday I Learned a Very Important Lesson. The Lesson I Learned was that Routine is Sacred; Always Follow the Routine. I threw Alex for a loop by doing writing after piano instead of after his break. This threw him off for the whole day and that is never a pretty sight. So I wrote myself a nice, neat schedule.

Tuesday went well. I remembered the lesson ;-). We went to co-op in the morning and then got 2 science kits done plus art! He is really enjoying art and later in the week even asked if he could do some drawing.

On Wednesday we had a field trip in the morning to a bird and flower sanctuary with Alex’s co-op class. It was fun! We got to see a corpse flower, hearts a bustin’, and money trees. There were more but those were my favorite.

On Thursday we went to a corn maze and Friday we made ghosts at Grandmama’s and shot off a rocket at Grandaddy’s (we nearly scrapped the whole thing though b/c we could not get it together but finally just went with our own model which worked just fine). Alex also took a spin on his go cart and gave me quite a start as he was whizzing around. I am not sure I like him not being afraid of that thing.

Saturday we went to a play at a children’s theater in Newport News. I generally like these plays a lot but this one was a little boring. The children were introduced to a few major characters in American History so that was good and after there was a little fair going on so we walked around.

I have been reading a book online about successful homeschooling and it encourages a relaxed “schooling” claiming that all math, for instance, can be learned in 2 years once a child is ready. They acknowledge that one should not (in their opinion of course) let their child go willy-nilly and do whatever he (or she) wants, but instead require plenty of help around the house as well as helping others, small amounts of school, and lots of play time. We are doing a lot more “school-y” stuff this year and I wonder if I am keeping a good balance between making time for free play and school work. For the most part he is enjoying it I think. Some he tolerates.

This week we are definitely going to have to carve out some time to finish his costume.

The plan WAS to spend the afternoon doing Science and Art but somehow that is not working out as well as I had hoped :-). We did, however, do one experiment yesterday before it was time to head out to Book Club. Our book this time was The Toothpaste Millionaire-very interesting and fun! It is amazing to me how much the children enjoy book club, although in truth I suspect it has to do with the knowledge that if they just talk about the book for a few minutes they can head outside to play. Book Club is a new addition this year and so far I think it is going very well.

Truthfully we never *really* stopped but I have not been updating b/c I was being lazy. My excuse was “summer break” but the truth was I was being lazy 🙂

We are getting into a groove with school work and activities. We added a little more work to our schedule this year and there was quite a bit of rebellion at first. Lately though Alex has been doing really well and has had a very good attitude. I hope that did not jinx it!

Short and sweet to say that we are back up and will try to do a better job of updating more regularly. I really want to post what we did with the 9 point circle; that was fun!